


Feral love

by superviolentfantasy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Body Horror, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, dark!harringrove if that's a tag lol, elements of sci fi horror/violence, major billy hargrove whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 15:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superviolentfantasy/pseuds/superviolentfantasy
Summary: AU. Basically Heather doesn't exist and Steve takes her place upon finding a distraught Billy hiding in the showers. The mind-flayer controlling Billy senses his attachment to Steve and ultimately decides to manipulate that deciding to infect him as well to use as another weapon.





	Feral love

His favorite part of " Bad reputation" had just come on the radio blaring the deafening silence of the night while all the blood roared in his head. He was easily cruising well above the speed limit, but was too past caring at this point. He didn't care about anything. He howled over the music not even focusing on the road in front of him anymore, All he cared about was going faster and faster. His face was ugly and sported a nasty bruise on his left cheek that was starting to swell. But that didn't seem to matter with all the adrenaline pumping through his veins while he laughed and drove like a deranged lunatic making him feel alive.

It wasn't like he hadn't been beaten black and blue from his shit excuse of a father multiple times before.

But this time he'd hit him especially hard.

He'd just gotten home that evening noticing his dad's car sitting parked in the driveway. It was unusual since normally he didn't come home till much later.

It wasn't until he saw him lingering in the kitchen with Susan sitting hunched over while he tried to comfort her that he knew something definitely wasn't right.

Apparently, Max hadn't come home yet and he was supposed to pick her up after he got off since she was hanging out at the mall with her stupid friends. It was getting late, and Susan was a nervous wreck not having any clue where he daughter currently was.No one mentioned a damn thing to him about it. Didn't she have a fucking skate-board for a reason? Either way, his dad couldn't care less for explanations and hit him square in the jaw when all that came out of his mouth was, " What? She's not a kid anymore. I can't have my eyes on her 24/7."

So as usual, his bitch of a step-sister got off scot-free while he was pinned all the blame on. He clutched the steering wheel tighter until his knuckles turned white.

_Great. Just great. Fucking fantastic._

A buzzing noise filled his ears and realized too late he'd run over something when his car suddenly swerved to the side of the road narrowly missing a tree.

It felt like he hit something hard, maybe an animal? A deer? Fucking Christ. He frowned and cursed at his busted windshield slamming the car door behind him hard which probably didn't help. He was more concerned about the damage it had probably done to his car than some poor animal blindsided by his headlights.

There was nothing underneath his car as far as he could tell. But when he examined his windshield a bit closer there was some weird discolored substance sticking to the broken glass.

" What the hell?" He dipped his finger in it, making him wince in disgust before flicking it off of him.

It was a warm July night, not a single star visible in the sky. It was the kind of darkness where there was no more softness to the world. Summer brought with it a bitter twist. The nights started closing in on each other, and the long days began to falter. After enjoying the pool, barbecues and the fireworks, it was hard to imagine in just a few short months all would be cold again.

The sound was indefinite at first, characterized by a slight metallic resonance that seemed to almost reverberate. As he looked all around the clearing giving his surroundings a quick scan he felt ridiculous for the unsettling feeling that creeped up on him. The ground crackled beneath his feet, the trees surrounding him sprawled out like contorted limbs trying to size him up. In the dense shadows it was easy to get freaked out, like the set-up of some cliche horror movie.

There was a slight breeze in the air feeling tiny rain droplets suggesting an incoming storm. He was in no way dressed properly and found himself in a bit of a predicament not seeing anyone around who could help him.

He flinched, stopping in his tracks when he thought he caught movement of something in his peripheral vision.

" Hey!" He called out into the darkness, " Hey! I said who's there?"

The sense of fear creeping up on him just made him all the more angrier. He hated feeling like a cornered animal, always having to prove himself to the world.

Just then he felt as though yanked by an invisible hand knocking him to the ground. He tried to thrash around and scream trying to kick it off of him, but quickly discovered that the more he struggled against it the harder it seemed to latch on.

He banged once against a metal wall and was dragged into an old abandoned plant not far from where he was. Using the last bit of strength he could muster he gripped the panels of the door until his wrists felt like they were going to snap.

It clamped over his mouth as the sickly dark substance coated every inch of his body spilling inside of him, making him feel half digested. Small, weak, pathetic.

He felt whatever it was invade his mind, building a network of connections through all his suppressed trauma and teenage angst. It was easy work, ripping someone apart who had already been broken multiple times.

After that, everything became black and fuzzy and felt himself drift off against his will.

He banged into a metal wall with a violent thud as if something had chewed him up and spat him out. The pain came back first, followed by the burning in his neck. He sucked in cramped air, every joint in his body aching and lay there for a while, semiconscious fading and waking and fading and waking.

_Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Shitt. What was that? What the hell just happened?!_

He blinked rapidly when he finally regained consciousness and ran. He just ran.

His lungs burned with exertion making him puke before getting into his car and sped away until he reached a phone booth sitting off to the side of the road.

He quickly dialed 911 not having any clue what to say that would make the slightest bit of sense what he just went through.

The woman's voice on the other end distorted and the power cut off.

It all happened in a blur. He didn't see any distinguishing features, but something had definitely grabbed him. Someone or something had taken him dragging him down into the darkness. Tears brimmed in his eyes and spilled out, his breath coming out in irregular gasps and it felt as if he were suffocating.

The moon-bleached dirt road shone in the dead of night as he looked ahead. In that moment, he’d never felt more alone than he did in his whole life.

" **_Billy.Billy_**…"

The sound of a thunderclap broke the sky and for a brief moment as he squinted inspecting a bit closer he thought he saw the sky flicker. He spotted bright flashes of crimson light ignite the pitch blackness making it look as though the world was on fire.

All of a sudden, his current plane of existence seemed to rip apart and he whipped his head around finding himself standing atop a rocky outcrop. His eyes moved along the ocean in front of him that seemed to stretch on forever. Seeing the beach again took him far away to happier times, when he was just a kid catching waves while his mom cheered him on from the side-lines. It seemed so long ago when he was actually happy.

" What do you want?!" He could hear the obvious panic in his voice now.

" **_I can see you_**."

He blinked hard in the descending darkness, trying to make out shapes, landmarks, anything familiar that stood out, how far away was he? Where was he?

Sometimes he didn't know where he was anymore, the past and the present intermingled, superimposed. And since no place was really his, no place was really home. Billy had this habit of always attaching himself to the thrill of the moment. How it made him feel, and focusing on that.

" Shut up! Shut up!!" He screamed, his entire being shaking beyond his control. " I'm not..I'm-I'm Billy! I know who I am!" Tears began to stream down his face feeling so small and worthless compared to the voice inside his head that seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him.

He felt his lips twitch, sharp teeth pushing out from underneath his gums as his grin spread farther and farther until his face nearly split.

" **_You what_**?" The voice snapped, making his body jerk backwards, the sudden motion giving him whiplash. He stumbled around in the dark and must've tripped on a tree stump landing on a sharp rock in the process. His ankle definitely felt broken, clutching it to his chest feeling the pain like a thousand spark plugs shooting up inside of him.

" _**You have all his memories? So do I. Along with every other host I've inhibited**_, "

Turning overo his side he gnashed his teeth struggling to suppress the moan of pain that escaped him. The pain was overwhelming and he ended up biting his tongue in the process feeling the metallic taste of blood fill his mouth.

" **_You know Billy, you and I are more alike than you think. I too want to lash out at the world as well. Make everyone feel the pain that's buried deep inside me. But there's no sense in doing it alone. Think how much fun we'd have taking them all down together."_**

He watched stunned as his tibia seemed to heal before his own eyes, across his body a sticky wet dark substance formed over his fracture. The temporary swell of pain receded and he lay there frozen to the ground unsure how to process what had just happened.

Strangled laughter broke out, the sound off somehow, like it was missing something. It was inexplicable and coaxing him further into spiraling into madness.

" **_Why diagnose me as the monster, instead of acknowledging the one growing inside of you? " _**

Billy stared into the darkness and screamed.

**

" Hey! You just cost me three dollars and fifty cents dickweed! It's not easy having a five dollar allowance in this economy ya know!" Dustin cursed out Billy when he'd bumped into him and Steve, knocking his ice cream cone onto the floor.

Surprisingly, Billy didn't say anything or seemed to notice for the matter. Instead, he continued to trudge along through the mass of people surrounding them, bumping into everyone left and right having a dazed look about himself.

" Okay, okay chill out man," Steve pulled them both aside where they'd set their stuff by the pool deck and pulled out three crisp one dollar bills and the exact change placing them in his palm.

" Hey, don't you think that was kinda..weird? He raised an eyebrow as he glanced back at Billy, usually he had a bit more attitude than that. Some arrogant remark or ugly words exchanged. But this time he didn't say a thing, just a sick feverish look about him like he'd been in the sun too long.

" Who the hell cares?" His younger friend huffed annoyed, heading in the direction of the vendors again.

Dustin was right. There really wasn't any reason why he should care about Billy's well being, especially after everything he had put them through last year.

Still, there was something strangely off with Billy that compelled him to go after him anyway.

**

Billy stepped into the shower, the shock of the chilled ceramic floor beneath his feet making him automatically breathe a bit easier. His mind was in shreds turning the dial all the way until his muscles felt frozen from the frigid downpour. He tilted his head, letting the water blast over him until he began to shake violently feeling feverish and frozen all at once. The strange force that was gnawing at him relented for the time being and the voices stayed quiet. He felt exorcised.

Overwhelmed by the cacophony of jumbled feelings and sensations spiraling in his twisted and tortured mind he slumped against a smooth slab of marble. He didn't feel like he was dying anymore, but the heat underneath his skin still simmered. His arms and hands were blistered bright red with parts of his skin were peeling off in chunks. He continued to stare at his blackened veins, like tentacles coiled around his wrists.

He lay there examining the grotesque horror of his own body when he heard the door barge open and someone come in.

Shit. _Shit._ He muttered to himself, feeling on the edge of paranoia. Who the hell was trying to get to him? Did somebody else know about the voices living inside his head? Why couldn't they just leave him alone?

He had quickly discovered that sound was amplified for him ever since being infected by that thing. He could hear everything. The ticking of a clock sounded like the sharpening of knives, and the sound of people outside laughing and having fun turned into high-pitched demonic like whispering, secretly plotting against him. It made him want to crawl out of his skin, burn his own and slip into a new one just to relieve himself of the insanity that was threatening to slowly consume him.

" Billy? Billy? Are you in there?" He could faintly hear a familiar voice calling out to him but nothing was registering over the pounding water and that damned dark shadow again fogging his mind.

His hair was plastered to his face, looking like a drowned cat and flashed an annoyed glare until he saw who it was.

He gave a slow mechanical blink, the image of Steve hovering over him finally shifting into focus. For a split second his eyes darkened, a trick of the light perhaps and he watched stunned as the rest of Steve's expression changed.

" **_Take me to him_**." His voice dropped a pitch deeper, having that same strange inhuman inflection that terrified him like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

Billy couldn't hold it in anymore, and his face fell as he buried his face in his hands, hugging his knees to his chest. The sight of him violently shivering while curled up in a fetal position with the water drowning him in his misery must've been a pathetic sight in itself.

" Hey, you alright, man?" Steve reached out to touch his arm, automatically causing him to flinch away as if he'd burned him.

He continued to stare at him, his eyes so vivid like the open book he was. All boyishness and innocence assessing him like he actually gave a shit.

" Should I call an ambulance or something? No offense but you look like shit."

There was more fear in his eyes than he'd ever seen in his life, and that was saying something as Steve had seen terrible, terrible things.

" What?" Billy rasped.

Billy's facial muscles twitched as Steve kept staring back at him, he thought he saw a break in his expression, concern but it turned to sympathy, pity. Anger swelled up in his chest until he seemed to vibrate with it, the voice in his head rising to the surface building up in his nerves. He squeezed his arm aggressively feeling that itch again. That dark shadowy fog that crawled into his synapses, into the axons that connect tissue and cell, into the cranial pockets of air that ventilate his brain.

" What does that mean?" He pressed, no emotion in his voice, he cocked his head to the side, lupine and unhinged. As if on the cusp of committing some horrible violence.

" You want to help us?" He growled through clenched teeth.

Before Steve could open his mouth to respond Billy had slammed him to the ground. Water still spraying everywhere as he leaned in close enough that Steve could feel his hot breath on his parted lips. He grabbed hold of his face and smashed his mouth against his. The act of it was violent, the air becoming thick and gory between them fast. Beneath his palm, he felt Steve flinch from the sudden aggression but oddly enough didn't put up much of a fight. There was a slick pop as his teeth dug into his lower lip making him quickly realize Steve had in fact kissed him back.

They pried each other's mouths open, looking for teeth, for release, to relieve some of that unresolved sexual tension that existed between them from the very start.

Steve, who always had something to say was silent this time. Letting the sudden violence speak for itself.

The taste of human flesh had become intoxicating and moved to roughly lick Steve's face like hard candy. In that moment all he wanted to do was rip him apart and live inside him forever.

He smelled the slight coconut of his sunblock, the harsh chlorine embedded in his skin and the scent that was distinctly Steve.

It was like some kind of cannibalism, some innate need to consume the other driving his higher sense of thinking.

Just then a smooth tendril pressed itself between Steve's lips and along his tongue, closing up the cavern of his hard palate. He blinked once caught up in the heat of the moment and watched as Billy's eyes flickered, all the light leaving his eyes and his pupils seem non-existent, on the cusp of committing some act of violence.

The tip of Billy's tongue melded into his and the thing inside him took the opportunity to exchange both their bodily fluids invading his mind. He felt as if hit by some sort of heady trance being deprived of all sense of consciousness as he looked over Steve. The blackened veins mapping every inch of his body constricted and shot out sprouting large clawed arms that dug into him hard enough to break skin. His blackened claw-like hands continued to stretch and extend around the entirety of his throat.

" **_Ohhh what is this we have here? Does this human mean something to you, Billy? You care about this boy. Yes, I can tell. Behind all that pent up rage and inferiority complex you carry around like a second skin there's a part of you that craves this Steve's affections._**

" **_I won't lie_**," It had no face but Billy could sense it sneering with morbid fascination, a horrible new scheme forming in its alien head, " _**He'd make a nice meat-suit, don't you think**_?"

**

The lashing tendrils that made up what could possibly be described as Steve's body condensed and conjoined into one solid mass. Slowly but surely he began to take shape, the complicated systems of bone and skin lacing through each other and weaving together like the final threads of a tapestry. The rest of himself accommodated for the blood and nerve endings eventually rearranging its cellular structure to take the form of its new host.

" Steve," Billy stood over him wearing the same dead vacant expression as him. Steve simply turned to face him, his movements stiff and robotic as he got up following to where he was leading them both.

They were both standing surrounded in total darkness in what looked like an old abandoned warehouse. The atmosphere was static and tense and the corrugated roof some twenty five feet above them loomed like a guillotine awaiting their swift execution as they edged forward.

" It wants us to build." He said, keeping his gaze fixated on the darkness as he reached for his hand linking them together.


End file.
